Players Understood My Message At Half Time: Roelant Oltmans

India rallied from one goal down to beat minnows Scotland 4-1 in their opening match of the Hockey World League Semi-Finals today and their head coach Roelant Oltmans attributed the win to the changes made after the half time.

“At half time I told them a few things and they understood the message. I am not aggressive, from my point of view, the key is to improve and I asked them to change a few things and they did,” Oltmans said after the match.

“It took a little while to open the Scottish wall and we were not able to do that in the first 30 minutes. They were hurrying themselves,” he added.

Speaking about the only goal of Scotland scored in the sixth minute, he said, “It came out of nothing. It was a long ball and the defenders did not defend as they should have. It was a good assist and their forward (Grassick) hit it straight into the corner. But I was not worried. I have never been afraid in this game, there were still 54 minutes.”

Ramandeep Singh struck with a reverse hit from the top of the circle in the 31st minute and three minutes later, he converted a pass from S V Sunil to give India a 2-1 lead.

Akashdeep Singh (40th) and Harmanpreet Singh (42nd) then took the game away from Scotland to give full points to India. India gave some other players chance to play in the final quarter. Asked about it, Oltmans said, “I also wanted to give Jasjit and Sumit a chance. They flew in this morning and I wanted them to get over the jet lag. Like Dahiya, they all need experience also.

Jasjit Kular and Sumit got a chance in the final quarter, as did the second goalkeeper Akash Chitke, who replaced Dahiya.